In preparation for tomorrow ….. Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration!

More than 45 years after his death and 50 years after his historic “I Have a Dream” speech, Martin Luther King Jr.‘s stirring words and writings remain as relevant and inspiring today as they were when he lived.

I just finished copying the excerpt about Martin Luther King written by John Lewis
in his autobiography entitled “Walking with the Wind.”

Here it is:

And, then on a Sunday morning in early 1955, I was listening to our radio, turned to WRMA out of Montgomery, as always, when on the air came a sermon by a voice that I’d never heard before, a young minister from Atlanta. I didn’t catch his name until the sermon was finished, but the voice held me from the start. It was a strong voice, a deep voice, clearly well trained and well schooled in the rhythmic singsong, old-style tradition of black Baptist preaching we call whooping. There’s a creative pacing to that style of sermonizing, a cadence, with lots of crescendos and dramatic pauses and drawing out of word endings as if holding a note of a song. It’s so much like singing. He really could make his words SING.

But, even more than his voice, it was his message that sat me bolt upright with amazement. His sermon was titled “Paul’s Letter to the American Christians.” He’d taken it from Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth, in which Paul criticized complacent Christians for their selfishness and failures of brotherhood. He adapted it to what was happening here, right now, on the streets of Montgomery, Alabama. I listened, as this man spoke about how it wasn’t enough for black people to be concerned only with getting to the Promised Land in the hereafter, about how it was not enough for people to be concerned with roads that are paved with gold, and the gates to the Kingdom of God.

He said we needed to be concerned with the gates of schools that were closed to black people and the doors of stores that refused to hire or serve us. His message was one of love and the Gospel, but he was applying those principles to NOW, to today. Every minister I’d ever heard talked about “over yonder,” where we’d put on the white robes and golden slippers and sit with the angels. But this man was talking about dealing with the problems people were facing in their lives right now, specifically black lives in the South.

This was the first time I had ever heard something I would soon learn was called the social gospel–taking the teachings of the Bible and applying them to the earthbound problems and issues confronting a community and a society.

I was on fire with the words I was hearing. I felt that this man–his name was Martin Luther King Jr.–was speaking directly to me. This young preacher was giving voice to everything I’d been feeling and fighting to figure out for years.

When I got to school that Monday, I went straight to the library to find out anything I could about this man. There wasn’t much, but I did come across a small newspaper article describing his appointment the previous September as resident pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery.

The first day of the Montgomery Bus Boycott was coordinated to take place on the same day as Rosa Parks trial. Fred Gray represented her in the trial.

That evening Martin Luther King gave the speech of what Fred Gray described as “what would become know as the pep-talk for each of the Monday night mass meetings” during the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Here is an excerpt that I copied from Attorney Fred Gray’s book “Bus Ride to Justice” (pp. 57-58):

These talks were for many their first glimpse of the genius that was within Martin Luther King, Jr. He was elected president of the MIA at a meeting at which he was not present, at Zion A.M.E. Church on South Holt and Stone streets. He presided over a cross section of preachers, three college professors (including one woman), two physicians, three housewives, a Pullman porter, and most of the rest being preachers. He soon became the favorite of all of them. He rose in stature to the point that many of the women who attended mass meeting after mass meeting could be heard to say, “Just let me touch his garmet.”

Yet Martin appeared to have never lost the common touch. He could calm the rivalries which arose among some of the ministers on occasion. Before MIA board meetings, Martin was always alert to congratulate someone for some deed of kindness. He was jovial, at a well-bred ease and aware of events in the neighborhood, or asking those present about matters which might have escaped him. But those qualities were qualities which were generally not yet realized on the night of the first mass meeting.

I just finished watching this, Xena. I see beauty in the striving of individuals to self-define themselves: I ached for those trapped between two worlds where, often, neither world recognizes them for who they are; THEN I see our White structured society pouring fuel on the fire by forcing people to check their race on written forms; and ultimately I cringe knowing the history of the one-drop rule.

Last Saturday on another blog where they posted the videos from Oprah’s show discussing colorism among Blacks, I wrote this:
………………

I just finished watching the Oprah show videos Ametia posted in her article today.

At the risk of being told that I, as a White individual, need to realize that the colorism conversation needs to be a “private” conversation among Blacks and that my “piping in” to comment is not appreciated, I am going to share some of my thoughts.

Also, when I listened to the preview video announcing that Oprah would be having the colorism discussion, I heard the documentary “Dark Girls” mentioned. I looked it up on Youtube and have now watched the complete documentary.

I hurt for what women of darker complexions have experienced within the Black community. I hurt for the Black community that has suffered because of both personal racism and embedded institutional racism in America’s White-powered, White-structured society.

Were it not for the White heinous deeds of oppression toward Blacks and discrimination against Blacks, the issue of being a lighter color for safety and SURVIVAL never would have entered the psyche of the Black community.

It was very important for me to hear the intimate stories and conversations about colorism, for me to understand, REALLY understand, the depth of the evil and the CONTINUING effects of that evil action committed by my White community against Blacks.

I AM SO SORRY.

The sincerity of my apology is going to rest upon what I choose to do during the rest of my life in order to effect a change and help to make my country a better society.

1. I choose to continue to discover all of my unearned benefits and advantages that I did not earn but which were simply bestowed upon me because I am White.

I know that I was accepted into college without the full competition that should have been present. I did not have to compete against Blacks who were far more qualified that I was. I also did not have to compete against a huge population of Blacks who deserved to be more qualified but were not because of the unequal education given them due to institutional racism that kept them in impoverished residential areas ignored by local governments which did not provide the high standard of education and funding that it did to White areas.

I also know the history of highly educated Blacks who were qualified for excellent professional jobs from the time after the Civil War to and through the 1900′s but who were only offered menial work.

I, being White, have never had to suffer the agony of constantly worrying that some day my children, grandchildren, nieces or nephews might come to harm because of being profiled or stereotyped by LE or some White citizen.

There are dozens and dozens of instances where I don’t experience stress and where I don’t have to be worried due to my being White and possessing unfair benefits, advantages and privileges.

2. It is my responsibility to teach my fellow Whites about the existence and unfairness of White privilege so that we Whites can denounce and renounce it in order to undo it and its damaging effects upon the Black community.

3. I will teach my fellow Whites to LISTEN and ACCEPT as authentic (validate) the personal experiences that Black individuals share.

4. I will teach my fellow Whites to understand why saying they are “colorblind” is wrong because it allows them to not see a Black individual for whom she/he is with the history that has discriminated against her/him and her/his ancestors and the damage that history has caused and that is still present.

5. I will speak out and defend a Black person whenever I witness a wrong inflicted on that individual whether it is unfair treatment at a grocery store or other forms of racism or discrimination.

6. I will continue to stand up and speak out against such things as LE “stop and frisk”, injustice, inequality or a crime involving the violation of a victim’s civil rights. There is so much more I could list.

7. I will speak out against any effort by racists or White Supremacists who attempt to turn the clock back.

I so want to make it possible for the sun to return and shine bright hope for a new tomorrow. I want to “weave sunshine” and dispel the overbearing and damaging storms that Whites have caused against my fellow Black citizens, past and present. I am going to do all I can to help to “weave a better tomorrow.”

I found it interesting in the “Who Is Black in America” that two sisters with the same skin color, the daughters of a White father and a Black mother did not self identify the same way. One felt more Black, the other more White.

But, both felt the decision was up to each of them individually. Would that those they come in contact with and society at large would respect each individual’s self-identification decision.

“One day we will learn that the heart can never be totally right when the head is totally wrong”

“Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”

“Courage faces fear and thereby masters it”

“This faith transforms the whirlwind of despair into a warm and reviving breeze of hope. The words of a motto which a generation ago were commonly found on the wall in the homes of devout persons need to be etched on our hearts:
Fear knocked at the door.
Faith answered.
There was no one there.”

“What is more tragic than to see a person who has risen to the disciplined heights of tough-mindedness but has at the same time sunk to the passionless depths of hard-heartedness?”

“On the parable of the Good Samaritan: “I imagine that the first question the priest and Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But by the very nature of his concern, the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”

“My friends, we cannot win the respect of the white people of the South or elsewhere if we are willing to trade the future of our children for our personal safety or comfort. Moreover, we must learn that passively to accept an unjust system is to cooperate with that system, and thereby to become a participant in its evil. … ‘Put up thy sword.”

“To have serpentlike qualities devoid of dovelike qualities is to be passionless, mean, and selfish. To have dovelike without serpentlike qualities is to be sentimental, anemic, and aimless. We must combine strongly marked antitheses.”

The following MLK “Strength to Love” quotation is quoted by Wikiquote:

There is little hope for us until we become tough minded enough to break loose from the shackles of prejudice half-truths, and downright ignorance. The shape of the world today does not permit us the luxury of soft mindedness. A nation or a civilization that continues to produce soft minded men purchases its own spiritual death on an installment plan.
But we must not stop with the cultivation of a tough mind. The gospel also demands a tender heart. … What is more tragic than to see a person who has risen to the disciplined heights of tough mindedness but has at the same time sunk to the passionless depths of hardheartedness?

Uploaded on Jun 24, 2010 by Iron Age Theater
Part one of two
Walter DeShields as Martin Luther King reading from Letter from a Birmingham Jail in front of the historic, closed Montgomery County Prison in Norristown as part of the Norristown Juneteenth Celebration and Tour produced by Iron Age Theatre and the NAACP Youth Council.